


i've been damned so many times i've lost count

by antisepticdork



Series: so it seems i'm someone i've never met [1]
Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demon Sex, Explicit Language, Ghosts (Kind Of???), Haunting, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, Mild Gore, Non-Human Genitalia, Sexual Content, here i come again, just when you thought this couldn't get any weirder, send help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:06:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antisepticdork/pseuds/antisepticdork
Summary: Mark stumbled out the next morning and was so distracted by the prospect of coffee and Cinnamon Toast Crunch that he almost forgot about the laptop. It had gone into sleep mode during the night, and curiously Mark punched in his password while stuffing his face full of cereal.The Word document greeted him. It wasn’t blank anymore.Keysmashes in a variety of fonts took up seven pages, most of them completely indecipherable. Black and green seemed to be favorite colors, and Zaglo text appeared on the last page. The whole thing reminded Mark of a child learning where to place their fingers on a keyboard, and it was… oddly adorable.At the end of the last page was a message that made something fuzzy and warm tingle in Mark’s chest: “h͜͝a̶͜v҉̷ę a̶̕ ̸̛g̢oǫ̨d̶ ͘d͞a̶̕y͠͝͏”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am fully aware that Mark and Jack are in happy relationships with Amy and Signe, and I wish them nothing but the best. This is just a goof.
> 
> This piece is something I've had on my back burner for a while (it's literally titled "ghosty spooks and scares" on my computer lol), and I've decided to post it to see if anybody would like a part two (with possible sexy times?). I've seen a lot of pairings since I joined the Jacksepticeye/Markiplier/YouTube in general fandom, but one that seems to be extremely rare is Mark/Anti, and for some reason it really appeals to me??? This is based loosely off of [this](https://agwitow.tumblr.com/post/158693148613/just-shower-thoughts-if-a-ghost-can-open) Tumblr post, and it's been a nice stress reliever while I'm stuck in Editing Hell on my book. I apologize in advance if anything seems out of character - this is my first time tackling either one of these guys - and for any spelling/grammatical errors, as those are my own damn fault. The rating's T for now, but as I've mentioned before, it bump up to M or E depending on the response. Thank you in advance for reading! :)
> 
> The title is from "River Below" by Billy Talent, which I think is an A+++ Antisepticeye song.

It started with the kitchen cabinets.

Mark Fischbach thought of himself as an organized person. But even if he were the biggest slob on the planet, he was pretty sure he would’ve noticed that about a month after he moved into his new place, his kitchen cabinets—which were closed every night when he went to bed, y’know, like in a _normal_ apartment—were wide open in the morning. He lived alone except for his dog, Chica. Unless she’d grown opposable thumbs and was hiding them in her perfect golden floof, there was some kind of bullshittery afoot.

It was simple enough for Mark to shut the cabinet doors in the morning while he waited for his coffee to brew, but that was so far from the point it might as well have been in another county. He didn’t know _why_ the damn cabinets were open, and even though earthquakes were common in Los Angeles, Mark had never heard of one disturbing nothing but the cabinets in one person’s apartment.

After a week of mysteriously self-opening cabinets, the weirdness escalated to Mark walking into the kitchen one morning to find everything strewn around on the counters and floor. He slipped and fell on his ass in a lake of Ragu pasta sauce, and was equal parts amazed and freaked the hell out to see that the plastic jar had been deliberately opened and upturned to create the mess.

“What the fuck?” Mark whispered to himself, jumping a mile in the air and shrieking like a little girl when there was a rustling noise in response. A quick peek around revealed Chica, happily munching away at the 50-pound bag of dog food he stored in the bottom of the pantry. It had clearly been deliberately slashed open with one of Mark’s kitchen knives, which was stuck in the wall near the trash can. “What the _fucking_ _fuck_?”

He held his breath, wondering for an absurd moment if he was actually going to get a response and feeling like a goddamn idiot when none came. With a sigh and a shake of his head—did he believe in ghosts now, was he _that_ guy?—Mark grabbed a mop and decided he’d chalk this up to a _very_ concentrated earthquake, for the sake of his sanity.

 

~***~ 

 

Another week passed, and Mark’s sanity was in short supply.

Ethereal Asshole Ed had graduated from wreaking havoc in the kitchen to acting like an ectoplasmic bag of dick-cheese in the rest of the apartment. Their (Mark wasn’t going to assume gender) habits included loosening the bathroom faucet before Mark used it, removing the knobs from literally every door, and yanking Mark’s bedroom curtains down at one in the morning. That last one created such an ungodly amount of noise that Mark was pretty sure his screams were echoing in outer space.

The maintenance man for the apartment complex—a big bear of a man named Ken—had taken to growling every time Mark called his office. Between patching and paint in the kitchen, a visit from a plumber, and multiple knob replacements (a phrase Mark _never_ wanted to hear), the cost of keeping up with his creepy roommate was putting a dent in Mark’s budget. Video game design was a good line of work, but another repair call would probably mean no food for a while.

Staring at the bills piled on his kitchen counter one night before bed, Mark felt the last frayed strands of his patience tying themselves in a knot. He had to do _something_. Retrieving his laptop from the sitting area near the window, he made sure to back up all of his important files to a flash drive before plunking it down on the counter too.

Mark opened a blank Word document and addressed the apartment at large: “Hey, buddy, listen up! I don’t mind you being here, but if I call that maintenance guy one more time he’s probably going to eat me. Like _really_ eat me, and not in the fun way.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Look, just… type out whatever’s bothering you, okay? Pretty sure you couldn’t write anything that’s more expensive than what that plumber wanted for me to stare at his ass crack.”

Satisfied with his big speech, Mark strained his ears, trying to detect any noise that might imply he wasn’t going completely fucking bonkers.

Nothing.

Dejectedly he went to bed, fully expecting to emerge in the morning to a burned-out laptop and whatever other mess Ethereal Asshole Ed decided to cook up.

 

~***~ 

 

Mark stumbled out the next morning and was so distracted by the prospect of coffee and Cinnamon Toast Crunch that he almost forgot about the laptop. It had gone into sleep mode during the night, and curiously Mark punched in his password while stuffing his face full of cereal.

The Word document greeted him. It wasn’t blank anymore.

Keysmashes in a variety of fonts took up seven pages, most of them completely indecipherable. Black and green seemed to be favorite colors, and Zaglo text appeared on the last page. The whole thing reminded Mark of a child learning where to place their fingers on a keyboard, and it was… oddly adorable.

At the end of the last page was a message that made something fuzzy and warm tingle in Mark’s chest: “h͜͝a̶͜v҉̷ę a̶̕ ̸̛g̢oǫ̨d̶ ͘d͞a̶̕y͠͝͏”

“Hey, thanks,” he said brightly. “My day’s better already, now that you’re not embedding knives in my walls.”

Much like the previous night, Mark wasn’t actually expecting a response. So when the screen on his laptop dissolved into a rainbow of fizzling pixels before forming into a new blank Word doc, he felt entitled to the yelp he let out. He grabbed a barstool and sat down before he could fall down, one hand clapped over his mouth so no other decidedly not-masculine noises could escape.

Through parted fingers, Mark asked, “You’re… here? Like, during the day?”

Slowly more Zaglo appeared, with the keys on the laptop getting pushed down one at a time: “i'̷m̸͠ ̵͘a̧̢͠l͢͏͘w̶̷̢a̶y͢͡͞s̷̡͞ ̕͝҉h҉er̵͟e҉.̡̧ ̸̢͘a͠l̕҉w̨͜͡a͏҉y̶s̶ ͢w̛͝a̸t̨͘ch̸̡i̸n͞ģ.͠҉”

Mark wrinkled his nose. “Like when I’m in the shower? That’s just a _little_ creepy.” He suddenly and vividly recalled the many times he’d jerked off since moving into this apartment. “You may’ve gotten more than you bargained for, pal.”

A noise filled the air that made the hair on the back of Mark’s neck stand up; it was high and reedy like an off note on a violin… or like laughter. “s͡͠o ̸҉muçh̵ ̸̸͝p͟o̴̢͜r̡̨n̴̸,̷̛͝ ̛͟s̕o̡̕ ̷li̡ţ̷̕t͠͝l̸e͏̶͢ ̵͞ti̴͡me̕͟.”

Mark chuckled. “You’ve got me there.” It occurred to him that he’d just come out as bisexual to a ghost, since the aforementioned ghost had apparently seen his browsing history of both straight and guy-on-guy porn. In the grand scheme of things—you know, mostly the _ghosts are real_ part—that didn’t seem like a big deal. “You must have more going on than observing my fantastic lack of a sex life.”

More Zaglo appeared onscreen: “i̵̴ţ̢'̸͜s̢ ͝҉n̡ot ̵̡͝as҉̨ ̕҉ex̴͘͝ci҉ti͏̵̴n̕g̶ ͏͘a̧͟s҉͢ y͠o̴̧u̴̷'̡͏̵d̨̢̡ ̛͠t҉h̢͟͝i҉ņ͡k̢.̛͟҉ ͠͝i'̴͠v͏e͢͢ ҉͘b͠e̕en̢͠ ͘͜t͞ra͏p̨͠ped ̵̵h͟e͟r̵̛͏e͏͞ f͜ǫ͞r̵ ͟a̧͞ ̨̧w̶̨ḩ̵i͠͝l̴͝͞e͘.” A pause. “ ͞ ̧͢͏t͜h͠e̸͟y̕ ͞fo̴r̢g̨o͏t̨̨̧ ̵͘̕a҉͝b҉oųt̶ ̸̢m̸͞e.̵”

“Who did?”

“e̕v̶͏͞e҉ryon̵e̶.̵̛”

Mark frowned. Wherever he’d thought this conversation would go, he didn’t expect his ethereal roommate to seem so… despondent. That was probably stupid in hindsight, since they were, y’know, _dead_ , but Mark tried not to judge a book by its cover. Or in this case he was trying not to judge a book that was completely invisible… and now he’d officially killed the metaphor.

“Well, I haven’t forgotten you,” Mark said. “I probably couldn’t, what with all the flying knives. By the way, I think we’re doing this wrong—I haven’t introduced myself and you’ve already seen my dick.” Like the idiot he knew he was, Mark stuck his hand out like he was waiting for someone to shake it. “I’m Mark.”

The slightest pressure wrapped around Mark’s hand from thin air, the phantom touch cool enough to make him shiver. If Mark stared hard enough, he could’ve sworn he saw a vague outline of white fingers against his own tanned skin.

Two words wrote themselves on the Word doc: “I'̨͜͡m ̴Ą̶n҉͠t̴i.̸̨”

 

~***~ 

 

The rest of the day after Mark’s close encounter with spirit-kind was uneventful. Anti went back to doing whatever it was he normally did during daylight hours, and Mark chipped away at work-related projects before he went for a run with Chica. She was ecstatic about getting to chase her tail in the sunshine and settled in for a nap as soon as they got back to the apartment.

Mark took a shower to rinse off sweat and the stink of air pollution (LA smog was no joke), and came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

The first thing he noticed was an odd hum, echoing and buzzing all around his bedroom. 

The second thing he noticed was the person on his bed.

He sat on the edge of Mark’s mattress like he belonged there, reclined back on his elbows in a pose that might have been seductive if it weren’t so tense. He looked to be around Mark’s age, with milk-pale skin and a vague semblance of a beard. He wore a black-on-black combination of t-shirt, jeans, and combat boots, along with shiny black plugs in his ears. His monochromatic color scheme was interrupted by a shock of dark green hair that was buzzed down on the sides, but the most notable thing about him were his eyes. One was as blue as the sky on a summer day, and the other was… _wrong_ , black sclera giving way to a glowing green iris. Blackened veins pulsed under the delicate skin near the radioactive-looking eye, trailing down his face and behind his ear.

As he was processing all this, Mark was grabbing the nearest solid object—his laptop, from its place on his nightstand—to brandish as a weapon. “Who the fuck are you? How did you get in here?”

The intruder on his bed frowned, a furrow digging in between generous eyebrows. He made a sound in his throat, as if he wanted to speak, but it sounded screechy and distorted to Mark’s ears. The green-haired man’s mismatched eyes widened in distress and he sat up straighter.

Involuntarily, Mark took a step forward, and that was when he noticed that the stranger’s lips were sewn shut. Thick black thread punched diagonal lines through fragile-looking skin, tied off on the same side as his black-and-green eye in a cruel imitation of sutures. Old blood was caked around the thread, which was strung so taut that the stranger couldn’t open his mouth.

In Mark’s hands, the laptop shuddered, its screen glitching momentarily before solidifying into something familiar: a blank Word document.

‘Y̵͢o҉u̵ ̢͟͟do͜n̷̵'͘t̸ r̴͢e҉c̛o͞g̵͡҉n̶̕i͞z̵̵e̶ m̵̕e͘͡?̷̛’ materialized before Mark’s eyes, and his gaze snapped from the computer to the man on the bed.

“Anti?” Mark whispered, ashamed to hear his voice crack. He cleared his throat and wondered if _this_ was the point where he officially Lost His Marbles. “How are you here?”

Anti’s piercing gaze didn’t leave Mark’s face, but the laptop’s keys clicked out more words. ‘I͝'͜m ̨͞h͘e̡͝r̴͢e͘ ̧b̨̕͡ec̡͠a̷͘̕u̴s̶e ̢̡o̷͡f̵͝͡ ͏yo̵̢͞u҉.͟͠’

Mark blinked. “Me? What did I do?”

‘Yo̧͘u̷͟͞ ͘b͝͝e̷͘l̕͜ię͠v̧͏e̸d̷ i͟n ͏m͝e.͡͠ ‘ The hum in the room changed frequency, fluctuating up and down. T͏h̸̴e ̨͘o̶̕t͜͏h̨e͘͝͞rs̡ w̴̕ho͝ ̶͡w҉er̸̛e ̶̷͢h͡er̕e̶͟ ͜͠b̶͘͡e͟͝͝f̵͟o̕r̨͟e ͢t͘h̴o̴u͟ģ͠h͏̸t̢͘ th̷͝e̛̕͢y͟͡ ̵͟w̶̸e̕r̛͏ȩ͡ ̢c͞͡r͘͞azy̕̕͟, b̵u̵̧t̶͝ ͘yo̡͢u̧.̢҉.͜.̛ ̷̵͟y̛o̵͝u͠͠͏ ̡͡m̨͏a̧͜d͠e ̧m͘͟͠e̴͟ ̷̧r͢e̸a̶͠҉ļ.̡

What the hell was Mark supposed to say to that? “I, uh… you’re welcome?”

Anti’s head snapped back, and it took Mark a moment to realize the rumbling, reverb-filled bass rattling his bones was laughter. It was muffled due to Anti’s lips being sewn shut—and shit, Mark was so caught up in the craziness of Anti being real that he’d blown right by the whole _traumatic injury_ thing.

Before he knew what he was doing, Mark reached out, his fingertips barely brushing against the edge of Anti’s mouth. He let out an involuntary little gasp when he actually felt something—skin and thread and a ragged wound—beneath his fingers, since he was still half-convinced he’d accidently eaten a tab of acid.

Anti flinched, and the outline of his body glitched for a second, like Mark’s laptop had.

Mark winced in sympathy. “Sorry. That must hurt like hell.”

He moved to pull back and almost jumped out of his skin when Anti’s long fingers snatched Mark’s wrist, keeping his hand in place. The digits curled around Mark’s arm were noticeably cooler than Mark’s own body temperature and tipped with teardrop-shaped black nails that bore a close resemblance to claws. The grip was firm but not punishing; Mark could have broken it easily.

He didn’t.

“Do you want me to cut these?” Mark asked, touching his thumbnail to one of the bloody threads. He’d had a few medical ordeals in recent years that’d required stitches, but he couldn’t imagine what having a large-bore needle jabbed through both lips would feel like. “I think I have a nail scissors somewhere. That’d probably do the trick.”

Anti made a curious sound, like he hadn’t expected Mark to offer to help. The laptop’s keyboard clicked out two words: “T̸h҉̴̡a̶͠nk͝͏ ͢͝y҉o͟͠u̢.”

Mark snorted. He stood, towel still clutched around his waist, and rooted around in his dresser for some sweatpants before heading to the bathroom. “Don’t thank me yet. Let’s make sure I don’t accidentally snip off your nose first.”

 

~***~

 

In the bathroom, Mark allowed himself to freak out a little.

“Okay, okay, this is fine,” he muttered under his breath, both hands wrapped around the edge of the vanity’s counter. “Who am I kidding? This isn’t fucking okay—I have a fucking _spirit_ in my bedroom! There is no piece of media in existence where this ends well for me!”

Sighing, Mark ran his fingers through his damp black hair, then dropped the towel and pulled on the sweatpants—mercifully, they weren’t the ones with the crotch that refused to button shut (he needed to get rid of those). He dug through the drawers in the vanity until he located the manicure set his ex-girlfriend had left behind, which had somehow made the trek from Cincinnati to LA.

Mark emerged from the bathroom for a second time a moment later, nail scissors clasped in a (slightly) sweaty palm. Anti was right where Mark left him, perched on the edge of the bed with his talon-like hands folded in his lap. The laptop had gone into sleep mode while Mark was gone, but it roused itself with a screen-shake when Anti’s gaze caught his.

Now, Mark realized, he had a problem: how the hell were they going to do this? If he sat next to Anti like before, Mark would be at a seriously awkward angle and could potentially stab Anti with the nail scissors. If he had Anti stand, it looked like he was going to be shorter than Mark was, which produced another angle problem.

That meant… oh, God.

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Mark said, “Uh… I think if I’m gonna do this without cutting you, I should probably… straddle you?”

The last part came out like a question, and Mark wanted to smack himself. _Smooth move, Fischbach. No wonder you’re perpetually single._

Anti blinked at him.

Mark blinked back.

It was a rousing exchange.

Then Anti moved his hands out of his lap, preternatural nails denting the bedspread. His posture had relaxed fractionally since he’d first appeared in Mark’s room, but now he looked wary. Mark didn’t blame him; this was going to be an awful lot of… _touching_ , and they barely knew one another aside from some knife-throwing and late-night exchanges through a Word document.

“Hey, take it easy,” Mark said, trying to be reassuring as he came closer. “If I do something you don’t like, just shove me off the bed, okay?”

Anti nodded curtly, and Mark figured that was as much invitation as he was going to get. Slowly and oh so carefully, Mark clambered up and settled a knee on either side of Anti’s thighs, acutely aware that there wasn’t a lot of distance between their nether-regions. The position put Mark higher than his target of Anti’s mouth, but the distance wasn’t as drastic as it would’ve been if they were standing.

Anti shivered like he was cold, mismatched eyes wide through feathery lashes as he stared into Mark’s face. His hands twitched against the bedspread, and the right one rose to tentatively clasp Mark’s waist, presumably to steady him in case he suddenly pitched backward. Those talon-like nails rested against the bare skin of Mark’s back, goosebumps popping up and spreading in their wake.

“Thanks,” Mark muttered. He swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry.

Taking a steadying breath, he brought up the nail scissors, telegraphing his movements so Anti wouldn’t be startled. The first cut was easier than Mark expected; the thread started outside the perimeter of Anti’s lips, and there was ample room to fit the blades of the scissors through. The cuts grew progressively more difficult since the thread got tauter near where it was tied off, but at least Anti could work his jaw a little.

When he’d made all the cuts he could, Mark set the nail scissors down and eyed the knot near the corner of Anti’s mouth. “This is gonna hurt.”

“I know,” came as a whisper from Anti, his voice low and rough from disuse. The electronics in Mark’s bedroom spat static, his laptop shutting off in an act of protest. “Hurt worse goin’ in, trust me.”

Mark yanked the knot loose. He figured it was kind of like ripping off a Band-Aid—better to just get it over with.

Anti swore in a language Mark had never heard, the strange words tinged with the barest hint of an Irish brogue. He flickered underneath Mark, the edges of his body going fuzzy with glitches before solidifying again. Black blood oozed from the holes where the thread had lived, and without thinking Mark smeared it off of Anti’s chin with his thumb.

“Who did this to you?” Mark asked quietly, momentarily distracted by the full pink swell of Anti’s bottom lip. Spirits and impromptu bedroom surgery aside, he was only a man… a man who hadn’t had sex in, like, a _long_ time. “And how does that work, even? Like how do you sew a ghost’s mouth shut?”

Anti’s eyebrows shot up to his neon hairline. “You think I’m a _ghost_?”

Mark’s eyebrows scrunched downward. “You’re _not_ a ghost?”

Anti made the same hair-raising sound of amusement he had while making fun of Mark’s PornHub search history. “I’m not a ghost, you idiot! How many ghostly laps have you sat on without fallin’ right through ‘em?”

“You’ve got a point,” Mark admitted. That would’ve been his cue to stand up, except Anti’s talons were still tight against his waist. “Uh… okay, so if you’re not a ghost, then what are you?”

“Something you should be afraid of,” Anti said. It sounded like he was trying to be menacing. “I’m old and I’m dangerous and I’m fucking _angry_.”

Mark stared at him blankly for a moment before he snorted out a laugh. At Anti’s incredulous look, Mark only laughed harder. “I’m sorry, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you’ve got an eye that’s literally crying black tears. That’s like, the most emo thing _ever_.”

Anti’s mistreated lips curled into a bitter imitation of a smile. “If you think that’s emo, you should meet the guy who sewed my mouth shut.”

Mark’s good humor left him immediately. “I shouldn’t, because I’ll knock his teeth down his throat,” he said, the words rumbling in his chest.

Anti froze. He looked more closely at Mark’s face, then down at his still half-naked body. “Oh fuck me.”

“I mean, I’m not opposed,” Mark said. He realized what he’d said a second later and felt his cheeks heat. “Or, uh, what’s wrong? That would be the appropriate response.”

“You sound and you look… like _him_.” Anti  like a cross between a cornered rabbit and a bull getting ready to charge, which was a pretty weird expression. “Do you know anyone who looks like me?”

Mark pulled a face. “Pretty sure I don’t know anybody else who goes fuzzy at the edges and talks in riddles, no.”

“I’m serious!” Anti’s grip on Mark’s waist tightened fractionally—and when had he started using two hands? And why didn’t Mark want to pull away? “Is there _anybody_ you can think of? Even somebody you met once?”

“No, I—” Mark paused. “There’s Seán—er, Jack McLoughlin. He works for the same game developer that I do, but he’s based in Ireland so we’ve never actually met.” _And I have a really pathetic unrequited crush on him_ , he added mentally. The rest of what Anti had said caught up with him, and Mark frowned. “Wait, you mean the dick who sewed your mouth shut looks like me?”

“Not just looks like you, he _is_ you,” Anti said grimly. “Well, kind of.” With seemingly no effort he gripped Mark around the waist and _lifted_ him off his lap, and holy Christ on a motorcycle that was hot. “Do you have any liquor?”

“If I drink booze I’ll die,” Mark responded. “But I think the last person who lived here left a bottle of vodka in the freezer.”

“That’ll do it,” Anti said. He glitched off the bed and made his way to the door, asking over his shoulder, “So, what do you know about doppelgängers?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Thank you SO much for all the gushing/encouraging/downright lovely comments on the first part of this story! I realize that my version of Anti is pretty different from anything else out there, and I was so so so happy when people seemed to like him! I'm sorry for the delay in posting the second part (which actually contains some plot and smut, buckle the fuckle up). My grandmother died two weeks ago, and between that and school I've been physically busy and mentally drained, lol. But since you were all so kind (and I wanted to write more Anti/Mark because THERE ISN'T ENOUGH OF IT) I kept writing when I could and now we're here! I should warn you, though: this is the first time I've _ever_ tried writing smut, and I've been writing fanfiction for going on ten years now. If it's not hot and makes your hoo-hahs shrivel like raisins, you have my apologies in advance. My version of Anti also has an unusual genital setup since he's not From Around Here, so do with that what you will.
> 
> I'm debating whether or not I want to make this into some kind of series, and maybe add some kind of sequel with Jack and Dark? I have a vague idea of where that story could go (besides to hell with all of us lmao). Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in reading, or if you have any ideas for another Anti/Mark adventure! Remember, any mistakes you see are my own! Enjoy!

“Let me make sure I have this right,” Mark said, and took a big gulp of his coffee. “Feel free to correct me if I miss something or, y’know, suddenly develop an aneurysm.”

He and Anti sat on opposite ends of Mark’s couch, the sun setting in between the high-rises and Chica sprawled in a coma-nap at their feet. Anti had kicked off his boots and talked for about twenty minutes about what he was, sipping occasionally at the extra-large vodka cranberry Mark had made from a can of Ocean Spray and the frozen bottle of Stoli in his freezer.

“You’re a fetch,” Mark began, setting down his mug so he could tick off the salient points of Anti’s explanation on his fingers. “Which is basically the same thing as a doppelgänger, except Irish instead of German. To be specific, you’re Jack’s fetch, and if you appeared to him it would be considered… ominous?”

“Fetches generally appear to their human as a warnin’,” Anti clarified. Mark couldn’t help but notice now that the Irish tilt to his words was similar to Jack’s. Anti’s voice was… scratchier, and certain words crackled like a poor radio station, but Mark found he didn’t mind. “It’s said that if you see your double, death follows.”

“Right, okay,” Mark said. He counted off another finger. “But fetches live longer than humans, because you’re from some kind of Mirror World. You’ve been alive way longer than Jack has, and so has my double—what did you call him again?”

Anti pressed his lips into a thin white line and winced when the gesture pulled at the scabs around his mouth. His wounds were healing rapidly, but they still had to hurt. “Dark. His name is Dark.”

“And Dark’s the one who trapped you here?”

“Yeah. We had a… disagreement, and he sewed my fuckin’ mouth shut before he stuck me in here.”

Mark could sense there was more to that part of Anti’s story. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s a prick!” Anti snapped, sighing gustily when his sudden anger was enough to make Mark flinch. He put down his drink to hug himself, pale arms wrapping around his slim torso. “Sorry. You’ve been… nice to me, and since I can’t actually leave this apartment the least I should do is not yell at you.”

He looked miserable. Mark slid closer on the couch, settling in on the middle cushion. It left a gap between them, but it was inches instead of feet. “I think you’ve got plenty to yell about, from what you’ve told me.” He reached out and poked Anti’s side, prompting the fetch to look at him from under the fringe of his neon hair. “So if you’re Jack’s exact double, what’s up with the eye?”

One of Anti’s hands reached up unconsciously, claw-like fingernails brushing the skin under the black sclera of his right eye. “M’not human, Mark, remember? Sometimes parts of the Mirror World bleed through into this realm.” He snorted. “Dark’s the same way, he just hides it under a fancy suit and tie.”

Mark made a face. “You’re sure this guy’s my doppelgänger? I’ve only worn a suit twice in my life and I threw up on myself both times.”

Anti grinned—his smile full of slightly crooked, too-sharp teeth—and threw back his head to cackle. That was enough for Mark to want to share every embarrassing thing that’d ever happened to him, as long as it meant Anti would smile some more. He was gorgeous, and it had nothing to do with the similarity to Jack; in fact, Mark hadn’t even noticed the resemblance until Anti had asked if he knew anyone who looked like him.

“Oh yeah, laugh it up— _you_ didn’t have to watch me try to waltz with loafers full of vomit!” Mark exclaimed, fake-outraged. He made sure to keep his voice silly-sounding and light, to bear the least resemblance to Dark possible. “Hey, since you’re not actually a ghost, does that mean you need to eat?”

“Now that I’m corporeal again, yeah,” Anti said. He glitched briefly as Chica stirred, yawning a doggy yawn before sitting up to nudge at the fetch’s hand with her nose, the universal canine signal for _pet me_. His eyebrows rose, and he tentatively patted Chica on the head. “She likes me? Animals don’t usually… do that.”

“Of course she likes you, doofus.” Mark stood and stretched from his fingers to his toes, tilting his face toward the ceiling as his spine popped heinously. He only remembered halfway through that he was still shirtless. Was Anti watching the play of muscles under tan skin, or did Mark just an active (wishful) imagination? “You _did_ make a point of slashing open her food bag, remember? I’m surprised she hasn’t called a Neighborhood Dog Watch meeting to declare you their new messiah.”

“She looked hungry.” Anti looked immensely pleased when a scratch behind Chica’s ear resulted in her tail thumping against the floor. “And now that you mentioned it, so am I. Did you keep that Chinese food menu you got in the mail the other day?”

“Do I look like some kind of heathen? Of course I did!” Mark grabbed the aforementioned menu off the kitchen counter along with his cell phone. “Let’s get some grub, and then we’ll figure out how to un-spring your trap card.”

 

~***~

  

After two hours and enough lo mein and egg rolls to feed a small army, Mark put away the leftovers while Anti loaded the dishwasher. How to use the appliances was apparently one of many things Anti had picked up from being confined to the apartment for… however long he’d been here, which was yet another question Mark added to the mental Things to Ask Anti Later list he’d started keeping. The whole situation felt strangely domestic, if you factored out the _fetches are real/Anti being held in the apartment against his will_ thing.

A thought occurred to Mark as Anti bent over to retrieve a dishwasher tablet from the cabinet under the sink, and it was thankfully a little more intelligent than an observation about how good Anti’s ass looked. “Hey, do you wanna take a shower? I can probably find some clothes for you to wear.”

Anti paused, tilting his head in consideration. “That would be nice. I haven’t taken a shower in years, and I’m pretty sure watching you in there doesn’t count.”

Mark—who had retrieved Chica’s leash and hooked it to her collar—almost tripped over one of the barstools at the island. He spluttered for a moment, and Anti seemed to enjoy watching him struggle to form words. “You watch me while I—?”

“We already talked about your porn habits—this is tame by comparison.” Mischief crept into Anti’s face as he shrugged, leaning against the refrigerator, the pose somehow exaggerating the pretty curve of his waist. He looked Mark up and down in a way, openly flirtatious. “Besides, you’re… interesting.”

“Interesting, huh?” Mark repeated. He dropped Chica’s leash in favor of stepping closer to Anti, close enough that he could feel the low hum of static that emanated from the fetch’s skin. “Is that a euphemism?”

“Oooh, big word,” Anti said, all sass. He blinked up at Mark with mismatched eyes, the wounds around his mouth almost completely healed and his near-constant glitching a shiver along his borders. “And what do you think I would mean by it if it was?”

“I was actually really hoping you weren’t being sarcastic,” Mark admitted quietly. He knew what they were really discussing—the fact that Anti had watched Mark get himself off in the shower and enjoyed it—but a part of him was afraid that speaking so plainly would break whatever spell had fallen over them. “Because my complete lack of a life outside of my job isn’t interesting at all.”

He brought his hand up to Anti’s face, much like he had when he’d first saw him, except this time Mark cupped Anti’s cheek. Rough stubble scratched at his palm, and Mark’s heartbeat rose from a jog to a sprint when Anti leaned into his touch, the corner of his mouth brushing Mark’s thumb. All Mark had to do was lean down a little, and—

A bark broke the silence, and Mark’s gaze snapped away from Anti to see Chica by the front door, watching them with baleful brown eyes. She _had_ been promised a walk when Mark brought out the leash, after all.

“I, uh… I’ll find you those clothes,” Mark said, Chica’s interruption like a bucket of cold water getting poured over his head. What the hell was he _doing_? Anti was corporeal for the first time in _years_ ; the last thing he needed or probably wanted was somebody who looked like the guy who trapped him here making moony eyes and trying to hump his leg. “You know where the bathroom is—I’ll leave the clothes on my bed, okay? I need to take Chica out.”

Anti’s expression was unreadable, and his posture had gone stiff once more. “Sure. Thanks.”

Mark watched him head for the bathroom, wondering what the fuck just happened and if he wanted it to happen again.

 

~***~

           

Mark brought Chica down to the courtyard behind his apartment building, which was green and well-lit and reduced the chances that he’d get mugged at the late hour almost nil. While Chica did her business and attempted to decimate the local cricket population, Mark sat on a bench with his phone and pondered whether or not he should text Jack.

He and Jack knew each other fairly well. They’d worked on several games together, and Mark’s architectural art style was weirdly complimentary to Jack’s sound design. But Jack was none the wiser about Mark’s crush on him, and if Mark opened the conversation with, ‘hey, you have a doppelgänger and he’s trapped in my apartment’, he was pretty sure Jack would either run screaming for the hills or call the LAPD all the way from Ireland to report an unstable person. Or both, and Mark wouldn’t blame him; he was starting to question his own sanity when it came to Anti.

Heaving a sigh, Mark pulled up Jack’s contact in his phone and shot off a text: **hey, you awake?**

It was buttfuck o’clock over in Europe, but Jack’s response was almost instantaneous. **Yeah dude, what’s up?**

 **Just wondered how you were.** Mark and Jack hadn’t worked together for a few weeks, and Mark was ashamed to admit that their communication had petered off because of it. This was why he only had, like, three friends. **It feels like we haven’t talked in forever!**

 **I know, right?** Jack sent back, and it was enough to make Mark crack a smile. **I have some pretty big news actually! I moved to Brighton!**

“Whoa,” Mark muttered aloud. As far as he knew, Jack was a homebody who grew up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere; it was hard to picture him in a big, touristy city like Brighton Beach. His fingers skipped over the touchscreen. **Wow, that’s cool – congrats! Seems like a big change. Any particular reason you moved?**

There was a pause, like Jack stopped to consider his next reply carefully. **Easier to get to London for the big work stuff. You know how it is.**

 **I sure do.** Work was brought Mark to LA, and he’d done nothing but bitch to Jack about the woes of moving cross-country. It was a little odd that Jack hadn’t returned the favor when he’d _changed_ countries, but Mark tried to brush off the twinge of disappointment he felt. **What’s the new place like?**

Another pause, this one long enough for Mark to wonder if Jack had fallen asleep with his phone out. **It’s nice. Good internet connection.**

That was… out of character. Jack was usually so exuberant with his words, regardless of whether it was through texting or waving his arms everywhere over Skype. Those five bland words stood out to Mark as cagey, evasive—almost like somebody was reading over Jack’s shoulder as he typed.

Or maybe Mark was a paranoid fuck coming off the strangest day of his life, and his brain was twisting Jack’s lack of romantic feelings for him into something this conversation wasn’t.

Before Mark could answer his last message, Jack sent a new one: **I’m actually pretty beat, man. Catch you later?**

 **Sure thing. Have a good sleep** , Mark responded. He waited a full ten minutes, but his message remained unread; Jack must’ve turned his phone off before he saw it.

Mark didn’t know why, but that bothered him more than the rest of their conversation put together. He whistled for Chica and she trotted over, smiling a doggy smile complete with a cricket leg sticking out from between her teeth. Mark sighed again and picked up her leash, resigning himself to flossing for bug appendages before he went to bed.

 

 ~***~

  

Mark was tossing pieces of an ungodly large cricket into the trash when Anti emerged from the bedroom, green hair plastered to his head from the shower. He’d put on the clothes Mark had left out for him—a pair of drawstring pajama pants and an Overwatch shirt—and his slender frame was practically drowning in cotton even though he and Mark were almost the same height. His feet were bare, socks piled with the rest of his clothes, and Mark chuckled when he saw that Anti’s toenails were pointed and black, just like the nails on his fingers.

“What’re you laughin’ at?” Anti grumbled, pushing his hand through his hair in an attempt to get it off his forehead. “I can’t help it you’re made of fuckin’ muscles.”

Was he… _blushing_? Mark wasn’t entirely sure, but a greenish cast had flooded Anti’s cheeks where they’d turn pink on a human.

He looked damn good, blushing while he wore Mark’s clothes.

“You’re adorable,” Mark said, and grinned when Anti crossed his arms over his chest and huffed. “I’m serious! You’re easily the cutest supernatural being I’ve ever met.”

“I’m the _only_ one you’ve met, you ass,” Anti sniped, but there was little heat behind the words. “And trust me, you wouldn’t say that if you knew what churns around in here under your friend’s face.”

The mention of Jack sobered Mark, and he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. “Speaking of Jack, I tried texting him while Chica was murdering every cricket within a mile radius.”

Anti raised his brows, his black-and-green eye flaring with interest. “And? You didn’t tell him about me, did you?”

“No, but this was our conversation.” Mark tossed his phone in Anti’s direction; the fetch caught with it blurred speed, like he’d started moving before Mark thought of throwing it to him. “I know you said that just because you’re Jack’s double doesn’t mean you know anything about him, but does that seem a little odd to you?”

Anti frowned down at the phone screen. “Seems like he didn’t tell you jack shit, pun not intended. I take it that’s not normal?”

“Two days before Christmas last year Jack and I had a six-hour Skype call while he baked four different kinds of cookies for his relatives. He described whatever I couldn’t see, from how the gingersnaps tasted to how gross the inside of his oven was. He tells me _everything_.” Mark sat down on the side of his bed and scrubbed his fingers through his hair in agitation. “But I’m probably just overreacting… right?”

Anti sat down next to Mark and put his phone on the nightstand. With a flick of Anti’s wrist the charging cable was plugged into both the phone and the wall; it seemed becoming corporeal hadn’t diminished his talent for manipulating electronics.

“I don’t want you to freak out,” Anti began.

Mark stuttered out a slightly hysterical laugh before putting a hand over his mouth. “I think it’s a little late for that, man.”

Anti smiled wryly. “Right. Look, it’s possible—and I mean the chances are infinitesimal—that Dark found Jack, like you found me.” He flopped backward on the mattress, arms over his head. The position pulled his borrowed T-shirt up far enough to expose his lower belly, which was surprisingly hairy. “It’s way more likely you’re friend’s got a lot going on and he was tired.”

“Why would Dark want to find Jack?” Mark asked, glancing at the way the waistband of the pajamas rode low on Anti’s hips before averting his gaze. “What good would that do him?”

“Everyone who has a fetch—or doppelgänger, or whatever name you give us—is connected to their double even if they don’t realize it.” Anti tipped his head back to stretch his neck, and Mark saw a flash of something—was that another mouth?—before it disappeared again. “Think about it like this: have you ever felt angry for no reason? Or sad? Afraid, and you didn’t know why?”

Mark thought about this and was startled to recall how many times he’d felt emotions that made no sense throughout his life, almost like they were filtering into his mind from a great distance. “So what you’re saying is that it’s possible Dark knows I’m with you? But they’d have to be strong feelings to make it to him, right?”

He deliberately did not think about earlier in the kitchen, and how he’d wanted nothing more than to press his lips to Anti’s, to map out the fetch’s mouth and body with his tongue. That desire was still there, humming in Mark’s bones in time with the constant low-frequency noise that cropped up whenever Anti was around.

“Pretty strong, yeah.” Anti paused. “For example, if you thought I was really fuckin’ annoying—”

“I don’t think you’re annoying!” Mark exclaimed, wincing internally. Had he given that impression? When Anti raised an eyebrow at his outburst, Mark continued, “Okay, so maybe at the beginning I thought you were annoying? Like when you spilled the pasta sauce everywhere and I had to clean for hours and I wound up with tomato in places no one wants tomato, _ever_. Or when you kept knocking down my curtains, but I thought you were just trying to see outside—”

A clawed finger on Mark’s lips silenced him mid-ramble.

Anti sat up and was chuckling at him, the sound reminiscent of a computer’s startup whirr. “Mark, shut up. I was kidding.”

“Oh,” Mark said, acutely aware of both the soft texture of Anti’s finger and the proximity of his claw to Mark’s left nostril. He took in a breath, knowing that if he didn’t say what was on his mind now he never would. “Anti, about before… it’s not that I’m not interested—because hoo fucking boy, am I—but I didn’t want to think I was, like, trying to use you as a stand-in for Jack. And where you said I look so much like Dark, I wasn’t sure you’d be comfortable with me trying anything.”

“Including ravaging me on your kitchen counter?” Anti inquired, chortling when Mark spluttered indignantly. His hand moved lightning-fast, going from near Mark’s mouth to around his throat in an instant, black claws poised directly over his jugular. “Besides, I’m hardly defenseless. If you do something I don’t like, you’ll know.”

Mark swallowed, felt his Adam’s apple brush against Anti’s palm. “What about…?”

“Dark?” Anti hummed contemplatively, removing his hand from Mark’s throat to brush the bangs off Mark’s forehead. They were as close as they had been in the kitchen by now, pressed together from ankle to hip with scant inches between their upper bodies. “You look similar, but you don’t strut around in a goddamn Armani suit all day like you own the world. And Dark isn’t tan, he’s gray—almost like a corpse. You don’t notice it unless you get close, and if you get that close then you’re already dead.” His thumb brushed under Mark’s eye, a role-reversal from earlier that had Mark leaning into his touch. “Then there’s the eyes. You’ve got these beautiful fuckin’ things, and Dark… it’s like looking into a snake’s eyes. There’s nothing there. At least there wasn’t for me.”

“You loved him,” Mark said. It wasn’t a question.

Anti smiled, but it was a brittle, sad expression. “I did. But he never gave me the time of day, beyond being a partner in his killin’ sprees. So instead of showing him what I felt, I convinced him I was crazy instead. A psychotic murderer who loved droppin’ bodies just like he did, but with less of a gentlemanly act beforehand.” He snorted. “Guess I did too good of a job, ‘cause he put me here.”

“You didn’t deserve that,” Mark murmured. He gave into temptation and ran his thumb over Anti’s bottom lip, which was fully healed and velvety-soft. “But for whatever it’s worth, I’m glad I left my computer out last night.” He choked back a swell of sudden emotion and added in a whisper, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Anti said, rough like a needle scratching a vinyl record. He stared at Mark with mismatched eyes, pupils blown so wide that the green of his right eye was almost gone, rendering the whole orb near-black. His usual brashness was overwhelmed by desire. “You gonna make a move, or am I gonna have to—”

Mark crushed their mouths together in a bruising kiss, a groan catching in his throat when he felt Anti’s arms wind around his neck, long fingers weaving into Mark’s inky hair. Sharp teeth—a little _too_ sharp, if Mark thought about it—caught at Mark’s lower lip and tugged, the taste of copper flooding through Mark’s mouth as he ran his tongue along Anti’s palate. His hands travelled of their own volition, moving from cupping Anti’s jaw to sliding down to his waist before gripping the juts of his shoulder blades.

The buzzing hum coming from Anti intensified, his whole form shuddering into static before solidifying again, nails pricking into Mark’s scalp as they continued to kiss. He broke away to moan when Mark used his grip on Anti’s shoulders to roll them, pressing the fetch to the mattress with his body and attaching greedy lips to the underside of his stubbly jaw. Mark leaned some of his weight on one elbow as Anti shifted beneath him, legs spreading to accommodate Mark’s hips as his hands travelled from Mark’s hair to ruck up his shirt, elegant fingers learning the muscular planes of his back.

Mark stretched the collar of Anti’s (his) shirt to expose more pale skin, brain too lust-addled to remember taking the damn thing off was an option. He groaned, suddenly aware of how hard he’d gotten when Anti hitched a leg around his waist, cock pulsing where it was pressed into the V of Anti’s groin through the dual layers of their pajamas. There was… _something_ lined up next to Mark’s dick, warm and pulsing and slightly damp. Mark’s hips rocked experimentally and Anti shuddered again, flickering various shades of red and blue and green as his tongue came out to lick his bottom lip—and was his tongue forked now?

Well, _that_ was a thing.

Mark noticed the tongue, and then Anti noticed that Mark noticed. He shrank in on himself like he expected Mark to pull away, and there was no fucking way that would happen over something so… trivial? When had a forked tongue become _trivial_? Probably around the same time Mark thought his apartment was haunted, come to think of it.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Mark ground out, panting for air and stupid with arousal but doing his damnedest to think rationally. “You can show me. I don’t mind.”

Anti made a wounded sound and brought one hand down to cover his face, cheeks tinged green with what Mark knew now was definitely embarrassment. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I looked like under this fuckin’ fetch shell.”

Mark finally got his breath back and leaned in to press a tender kiss to Anti’s temple, then his ear. His skin tasted less like the saltiness of sweat and more like ozone, but Mark found he didn’t mind. “I’m not going anywhere, unless you want me to. Don’t hold yourself back on my account.”

Anti caught Mark’s face in both hands and stared at him intently. Whatever he saw on Mark’s face—whether it was lust, comfort, or steadily-growing affection—must’ve reassured him. The next thing Mark knew, they were kissing again and he could hear the skin of Anti’s neck pulling apart, the sound wet like snapping chewing gum. Then there was a second forked tongue, longer and _much_ thicker than the one in the mouth on Anti’s face, and it was curling itself around the back of Mark’s neck.

Mark paused. The second tongue pulled him impossibly closer to Anti, almost like it wanted to eat him. “Should I be worried?”

Anti stilled when Mark did, and opened his radioactive-looking eye to peer at him. “Sorry,” he muttered against Mark’s lips. “I tried to warn you.”

Mark pulled back enough to get a better look, and yep, that was another mouth. It ran along the width of Anti’s throat like a knife slash, and its long tongue was encircled by rows of shiny white needle-teeth. When it noticed Mark looking, the neck-mouth pulled its tongue back in and grinned at him, the effect not unlike opening a fresh package of razor blades.

“Wow,” Mark said. His gaze flickered from the neck-mouth to Anti’s face; the fetch looked like he was bracing for a blow. “You’re gorgeous.”

The mouth on Anti’s face dropped open in shock; the neck-mouth continued to grin, like the smart-ass it was. A third eye opened in the middle of Anti’s forehead, the iris and sclera black as pitch. “Are you _insane_? I’m a monster, I don’t belong here—I’m a parody of the guy you’ve got a hard-on for—”

“Last time I checked I had a hard-on for _you_ , not Jack,” Mark interjected, forcing himself to stay calm when what he really wanted to do was find Dark and bash in his skull. He had no proof, but he was sure Anti’s almost complete lack of self-confidence had been influenced by Mark’s double in some way or another. He thrusted his hips again to emphasize his point; Anti groaned at the friction, all three of his eyes rolling back in his head. “And you’re not a monster. Pretty sure a monster would’ve, like, ripped my face off by now or something.”

“M’gonna rip your face off if you don’t _do_ something.” Anti made an impatient sound and tugged at Mark’s shirt like it offended him. “Get rid of this.”

Mark sat back, yanking the T-shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor. He also took the opportunity to kick off his flip-flops, which he’d put on to take Chica for a walk. He shook his hair out of his face and tried to ignore the way his sweatpants chafed against his hard cock, grinning when he realized Anti was staring at him. “What?”

“You’re fuckin’ ridiculous and I hate you,” Anti sniped, before lifting his arms like a pouty little kid. “Take off my shirt.”

“You mean _my_ shirt,” Mark corrected, but he pulled off the oversized garment anyway. Anti was as pale and lithe as he’d imagined, another lethal-looking mouth grinning along the curve of his ribcage. Blackened veins ran near the surface of his skin in places, and little patches of him seemed to always be shifting around, like pixels constantly forming a new image.

After looking his fill, Mark eased himself back down, leaning his weight on his forearms and smiling when he felt Anti’s hands close around his biceps. “Any other surprises I should know about?”

Anti smirked, but the ghost of uncertainty lingered around his eyes. He raised his hips off the mattress in invitation, leaning up to brush his lips along Mark’s jawline. “Why don’t you take these off and see for yourself?”

Mark snorted. “You know, it figures—you’re wreaking havoc again, and I get to do all the work.” He grunted in surprise when he felt Anti’s static-laced fingers slide under his waistband, pulling Mark’s sweatpants down far enough for his trapped erection to spring free. Mark shimmied around, swearing under his breath when the pants caught momentarily on one of his ankles. He caught the hungry look on Anti’s face and stifled a moan. “Thought I was supposed to be undressing you?”

Anti’s smirk was now a mischievous smile. “Hey, you were the one who started complaining.”

He yanked his borrowed sweats down, hooking them over his knees and kicking them to the floor. On first glance, Mark wasn’t sure what was supposed to be surprising. Anti’s cock was a little slimmer and shorter than his own, flushed a dark green instead of angry red and oozing brackish, sticky-looking precome from the tip. Below that was where the similarities ended; in place of visible testicles was a slit a little shorter than Mark’s finger in length, the opening wet with what appeared to be the same kind of thick fluid that leaked from Anti’s dick.

It took Mark’s brain a second to process what he was seeing, but when he did it took everything he had not to come on the spot. “Oh, fuck me. You’ve got _both_?”

“Like I said, things in the Mirror World are a little screwy. When I get worked up it’s hard for me to regulate eyes, mouths—or other things,” Anti explained, shrugging his shoulders. “From what I’ve seen, gender is a social construct kept up by old white men. Genitals don’t dictate gender, and where I come from it doesn’t matter what you use to fuck.”

“Christ,” Mark said. “You’re amazing.”

He was so hard it hurt, and when he leaned down to kiss Anti again they both groaned at the contact, Anti’s hands flying up to tangle in Mark’s hair again while his legs hooked around Mark’s waist. This time when Mark rolled his hips Anti moved to meet him halfway, brushing Mark’s cock first against the wet folds of his slit and then along the hardness of his dick, the skin of which felt coarse, almost like scales. Anti made a keening noise in the back of his throat and thrusted his hips again, tightening his legs in what could only be an attempt to draw Mark inside him.

Mark shuddered and reigned in the urge to just hump forward into damp heat. He drew away from Anti’s mouth in favor of gasping for breath, resting his forehead against the fetch’s prominent collarbones. “Can I… I can’t hurt you, right?”

Anti let out one of his strange high-pitched laughs, little glitches buzzing across his skin in random spots. “Of course you’d fuckin’ ask me that—no, you can’t. And you can’t knock me up, either.” Talon-like nails dug into the skin of Mark’s back, hard enough to draw blood, and Mark could feel the restrained strength in Anti’s leg muscles. “Get on with it already, _a mhuirnín_.”

One of Mark’s hands ran down Anti’s side before gripping the underside of his thigh. Mark twitched his hips forward and made a pathetic little noise at the sensation of the head of his cock being engulfed by velveteen heat. The slide in was almost impossibly tight, but Anti’s body stretched to accommodate Mark’s dick, the sticky greenish substance coming from his slit more than enough to ease the way.

Mark had wanted to ask what the hell Anti had just called him, but that thought flew out of his head along with the rest of his higher brain function once he was fully seated inside the fetch. “Oh, _fuck_ me,” he said, voice gravelly and totally wrecked. “Holy shit.”

Anti whined high in his throat—reminding Mark bizarrely of a VHS tape getting rewound—and clenched his muscles.

Mark almost blacked out.

He started moving blindly (literally, since he was seeing spots), pulling out nearly all the way before thrusting back in, nibbling at Anti’s chest and barely noticing when the tongue from Anti’s second mouth emerged to lick the side of Mark’s face. He slid an arm under Anti’s lower back, pressing their bodies _that_ much closer together and deepening his thrusts until Anti was writhing and glitching constantly, the sounds coming from his mouth downright sinful.

Mark possessed a thriving sex drive, but considering how long it’d been since he’d screwed anything besides Ol’ Righty, this wasn’t going to last. Anti was warm and tingly and _alive_ under him, meeting him halfway at every thrust and going fuzzy every time. His arms wrapped around Mark’s back tight enough for Mark’s ribs to creak, long nails biting into his skin and filling the air with the scent of blood.

“Mark— _oh_ —more,” Anti said, voice pitching higher with every syllable, each meeting of their hips enough to punch the air from his lungs. “Harder. I want _more_.”

Mark let out a laugh that strangled into a moan when Anti’s teeth dug into his shoulder. “ _More_ might kill me, you know.”

Anti pulled back from the impressive hickey he’d made to give Mark a sly look. “Oh, give me a break—I’ve watched you in the shower, remember?”

Mark groaned in response—how could he forget that?—and slid his hand back under Anti’s thigh again, using the leverage to hook it over his shoulder. The new angle meant his next thrust made Anti _scream_ , claws raking at Mark’s bloody shoulders as he came. Blackish-green fluid splattered from his dick onto both their stomachs, and Mark could feel the same fluid leaking out around where they were joined. Anti’s inner walls trembled, closing in around Mark in a hot, almost painful embrace, and his own orgasm hit him like a freight train a second later as he emptied himself inside Anti.

Mark had the forethought to pull out before he collapsed on the fetch’s chest, heedless of the mess between them. Anti took his weight with a grunt as they both fought to catch their breath. Fingers began carding through Mark’s sweaty hair, careful not to cut his scalp; Mark smiled to himself as he groped around, blindly searching for Anti’s free hand and lacing their fingers together. Every muscle in Mark’s body ached and the wrecked skin on his back was starting to prickle with pain as his adrenaline faded, but he didn’t give a shit.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he was actually _happy_.

Anti made a contemplative noise, which caused Mark to peer up at him. The fetch’s less-than-human features—the third eye and throat-mouth, to name a few—had begun to fade as he calmed down. “I suppose this means that now you won’t want to help me get out of here, huh?”

Mark’s brows furrowed. “What? Why wouldn’t I do that?”

Anti stared at him, deadpan as he replied, “Because now you want to keep me as a sex slave. Duh.”

Mark rolled his eyes, shimmying upward until he could smack a kiss against Anti’s green-flushed cheek. “And you call _me_ an idiot. I told you, we’ll figure it out.” A yawn forced its way out of Mark’s mouth without his consent, and gosh, the crook of Anti’s neck felt awfully warm and inviting… “After a nap. Naps are good.”

Anti pulled a face. “Really? We’re just going to lay here covered in come?”

Mark grumbled intelligibly and formed words only when Anti nudged him: “Can shower after.” He snaked his arm around Anti’s waist, nuzzling into the soft spot under his ear, away from the skyline’s artificial lights. “Nap now. Naps are good.”

Anti sighed the sigh of the long-suffering before kicking his foot until the sheet settled most of their bodies. He settled his arms under Mark’s ribcage and rested his cheek against his hair. “Humans. You always want _something_.”

“Want you,” Mark mumbled, worn-out enough that the admission didn’t embarrass him in the slightest. “Want you to want me, too.”

A pause, and then Mark felt lips brush against his forehead. Before he fell asleep completely, he could’ve sworn he heard Anti’s echoing, otherworldly voice say, “That’s not a problem, _a mhuirnín_. You have me.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Does It Offend You, Yeah?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965527) by [chelsea_chee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelsea_chee/pseuds/chelsea_chee)




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